Assault weapons nearly killed Trump: Why aren’t we talking about banning them?

Andres Oppenheimer

The general reaction from both conservative and liberal media to the apparent Sept. 15 murder attempt against former president Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course was pitiful. There were thousands of stories about possible Secret Service security failures — which is OK — but very few about the alarming spread of assault rifles that is emboldening potential assassins in America.

The suspected gunman, identified as Ryan W. Routh, 58, had a previous criminal record for illegal possession of an automatic rifle. He was hiding behind the bushes with an AK-47-style assault rifle nearly 500 yards away from where Trump was golfing.

Only a few weeks ago, on July 13, another gunman with an AR-style assault rifle had fired eight shots from a rooftop near where Trump was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania. The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, was shot and killed shortly thereafter by a Secret Service counter-sniper.

These types of assault rifles, which were banned in the United States from 1994 to 2004, have become the weapon of choice for would-be political assassins and mass murderers in the country. And their sales have been booming in recent years.

Experts say the rise of gun sales in general, and semi-automatic rifles in particular, is due to growing political polarization, personal security fears during the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about mass shootings and worries about possible bans on assault weapons.

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF,) an industry group that supports sales of these war-type weapons, there are more than 24.4 million AR-15 and AK-style rifles in civilian hands in the United States.

“This is a truly significant figure that demonstrates – again – the popularity of this commonly-owned style of rifle,” NSSF President Joe Bartozzi gleefully announced when he released this figure for 2022, the last year for which statistics are available.

While sales of assault weapons peaked during the pandemic and have fallen somewhat since, they have skyrocketed over the past two decades, experts say. U.S. companies that manufacture these weapons used in some of the worst mass shootings have made more than $1 billion in revenue in the past decade, according to a recent investigation by the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

The Everytown for Gun Safety advocacy group has reported that between 2015 and 2022, mass shootings involving assault weapons that left four or more people dead resulted in more than twice as many deaths and left 23 times more people wounded than in attacks with less sophisticated guns.

There have been at least 2,373 mass shootings in the United States just in the last four years, according to the Gun Violence Archive research group.

And yet, despite the rise of mass shootings in schools and public places, and the most recent assassination attempts on Trump, the fact that gunmen are finding it increasingly easier to get hold of semi-automatic weapons is barely drawing any media attention.

Shooting people with a military-style assault weapon has become the new normal in America, or so it seems. The National Rifle Association, the gun lobby and Trump’s Republican party are getting away with the very dubious claim that the use of these military weapons by civilians is protected by the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution proclaims “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” but not the right to possess a nuclear weapon, or a bazooka. The Constitution referred to muskets and other manual firearms, not semi-automatic killing machines that did not even exist when the framers wrote it in 1787.

“There is a myth that Americans are uniquely violent, but that’s simply not true,” says Garen J. Wintemute, head of the University of California’s Center for Violence Prevention Research. Other wealthy industrialized countries have higher rates of assault and robbery, he adds.

“Where we are unique is in our rate of fatal violence. That is because we have a unique level of access to firearms, which change the outcome when violence occurs,” he concludes.

The gun lobby’s argument that Americans need these assault weapons for hunting is just as ridiculous. Do you really need a rifle that reloads by itself to kill a pigeon, or a deer? Traditional rifles are much more suitable for ethical hunting because they force hunters to make clean, accurate shots.

It’s time for the media to focus on the role of assault weapons in mass shootings and political violence, and for voters to elect candidates who support reinstating the 1994-2004 ban on assault weapons. It may not stop the ongoing carnage, but it would go a long way in saving many lives.